


Ode To Storms

by Sinnatious



Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, Gen, Linked Universe (Legend of Zelda), Temporal Paradox, Time (Linked Universe)-centric, Time Loop, Time Travel, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-21
Updated: 2020-08-23
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:01:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 16,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26024620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sinnatious/pseuds/Sinnatious
Summary: Time is a paradox of Hylia’s own making, and this is how she deals with it. Linked Universe fic, Time-centric.
Comments: 154
Kudos: 376





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is born out of a really really old OoT/MM lore idea I played with back in Majora’s Mask days and never did anything with, but have now hamfisted it into Jojo's Linked Universe mostly because I wanted to see if I could.

It begins and ends like this.

They’re exhausted, injured, dirty, but – victorious. Laughing with relief that they’re all alive, giddy with fading post-battle adrenaline.

He can go into retirement content like this, Time thinks. There’s something deeply assuring to know that Hyrule is in good hands, and that his contemporaries are worthy heroes to the last.

“Let’s get out of here,” Hyrule suggests.

“Yeah, we have to go celebrate!” Wind cheers.

“Um, a problem with that,” Twilight reports. “The exit’s still locked.” He tugs on the heavy stone doors still sealing the entrance. They don’t budge. Legend joins him with his power gloves, and Time adds his strength as well. They might as well be pushing against a mountain – it doesn’t give at all.

It’s the only way out. No windows, no trapdoors, no other entrances – they’re in nothing more than an enormous stone cellar lined with flaming blue torches. Deep in an unknown temple, in an unfamiliar Hyrule, at a point in time not familiar to any of them. There are no spells or songs to teleport them out.

Before panic can set in, nine portals bloom into existence around them.

“Portals?” Sky asks. “Now?”

They wait for a moment, weapons at the ready, but nothing emerges from them. The portals simply wait, faintly thrumming.

The number doesn’t go unnoticed. “I guess this is the Goddess’s way of saying it’s time to go home?” Hyrule suggests. His voice wobbles on the last word, and he bites his lip.

“Is this… goodbye?” Wind asks, face falling.

Time stares into the portals, conflicted. “Every meeting is inevitably followed by a parting,” he murmurs, the words ringing hollow in his ears.

He can finally go home, finally go back to Malon and the ranch, but… these are his boys. They’re _family_. His heart aches at the thought of never seeing them again.

The moment is broken by Four slapping Wind on the back. “Don’t treat it like a sad thing! We get to see our homes and loved ones again. All adventures end someday, and I’m going to remember this one fondly.”

“He’s right,” Warriors agrees. “It means we did our duty. It’s been an honour fighting with all of you, and I’ll never forget it.”

The others are nodding in agreement. It’s like it breaks a dam, as everyone rushes to say their farewells and last words. Warriors goes to hand his Fire Rod back to Legend, who pushes it back into his hands with a scoff. Twilight and Wild are talking and crying, heads bent together. Sky picks Wind up, spinning him a circle one last time with a laugh. Time shakes Four’s hand with a smile and a thanks, ruffles Hyrule’s hair, comforts Wind when he starts sniffling as he says goodbye. Legend hugs Hyrule in the background loudly demanding that he take care of himself or he’ll curse him from beyond the grave. Wild gathers them all up to take a picture using his slate, then Wind demands they also take one with his pictograph.

“It’s a bit rude, though,” Legend remarks. “She couldn’t have even waited a day so we could celebrate properly?”

“I’m going to miss your cooking,” Sky tells Wild. “I was hoping we could enjoy it one last time.”

Twilight hugs Time fiercely. “Live a good life, without any regrets,” he says, voice tight. “ _Promise_ me.”

Time smiles, and returns the gesture. “Of course,” he says. “I expect the same of you. I couldn’t be more proud.”

Twilight lets go, eyes shining.

“Who goes where?” Four asks, eyeing the portals.

“It’s the Goddess’s magic. It probably doesn’t matter,” Legend says. “Or she would have left some sort of sign. Just choose whichever.”

“All together, then?” Sky suggests.

Everyone nods, spreading out, a portal each.

“I’ll miss you all!” Wind cries out.

Then Time steps into the portal.

* * *

He steps out of the portal, and is immediately certain something has gone terribly wrong.

It’s not home, he knows that instantly – one glance at the shape of the mountains in the distance tells him that much. There’s something familiar about it, but he can’t peg where he recognises the horizon from.

Had they been mistaken, perhaps, and the portals weren’t bespoke after all? Had he taken the wrong one? Was one of the others adrift in his Hyrule, while he’d taken their place?

Or was the adventure not truly over?

Dread begins to pool in his stomach, but he ignores it for now. The portal has vanished behind him, so he has no choice but to move forward, to explore and find out why he’s here, and not heading home to the ranch and Malon’s welcoming embrace.

Three familiar figures appear in the distance. Sky, Warriors, and Four, walking towards him.

The sense of déjà vu sharpens, twisting his gut with sourness.

“You think he’s another one?” Four is asking Warriors.

Warriors scoffs. “Of course he is, _look_ at him.”

“Hello!” Sky calls, waving. “Did you just happen to come through a portal?”

Time stares. Sky’s clothes are pristine – not yet stained and ragged from months on the road. Warriors is missing the small scar he’d picked up on his neck, the one he normally takes care to hide with the folds of his blue scarf. Four’s hair is a finger shorter than it had been just minutes ago.

He’s been here before. He’s experienced this exact moment already.

“You don’t remember?” Time asks, throat dry. He needs to ask. He has to know for sure.

They look at him, puzzled. “Remember what?” Four asks, gaze sharp and curious. Far more guarded than it had been after months on the road together.

Time is no stranger to time travel – he’s rather the expert in it, in fact. This is far from the first time he’s been forgotten.

It doesn’t sting any less.

He pulls himself together, through long and painful practice, and ignores the sick suspicion growing in the back of his thoughts. “Where is this? And for that matter, when is it?”

“We’re still figuring that out ourselves,” Warriors replies. “Just to check – your name?”

“Link,” he replies absently, though it feels strange on his tongue after so long. At some point he’d grown more used to being called ‘Old Man’, ‘Time’, and ‘Fairy Boy’ – his actual name no longer feels as though it fits.

“Told you,” Warriors says to Four, who rolls his eyes.

“Welcome to the club then. I’m Link, he’s Link, he’s also Link, there’s another two Links back at camp. Come with us, we’ll explain what we know so far.” Four gestures back the way the three of them came.

Time goes along with it, thoughts racing.

Their first meeting goes much like he remembers. Legend and Twilight are the two back at the camp – Twilight stares at him unceasingly from the minute he first arrives, and nearly forgets to respond when it’s his turn to introduce himself. If his memory servers him correctly, Hyrule will emerge from the woods later that night. Wild will arrive tomorrow. They’ll come across Wind fighting a trio of bokoblins the day after.

Everyone is faintly distressed by their similarities, so they quickly latch onto the things that set them apart – their titles, their skills, their experiences. No one is particularly forthcoming with details of their adventures, and so nobody asks more than the basics at risk of inviting those same questions upon themselves.

It’s uncomfortable. Time had worried about showing too much familiarity to begin with – it’s impossible to summon the same degree of caution he held when meeting his peers the first time - but the air of awkwardness takes care of the problem for him. Still, he minds his words, listening in on the tentative discussion between his fellow heroes without contributing.

He’d hoped that perhaps, among their number, someone else might remember. But their reactions are too natural, the gaps in their knowledge of each other too obvious – mistakes Time himself makes that go unnoticed. It’s only Warriors who makes a remark.

“You’re taking this well,” he comments.

“I could say the same of the rest of you,” Time responds easily.

Four huffs a laugh, and pokes at the fire. “Should have seen us yesterday when we first realised we all shared the same name. There was a lot of shouting.”

Time just hums, and when it seems like they’re waiting for more, offers, “I am called the Hero of Time, after all.” It’s an answer that provides nothing, but lets them draw their own conclusions. They all nod as though that makes sense and don’t pursue it.

He doesn’t understand, though. They’d _won_ , hadn’t they? They’d defeated the threat the Goddess had brought them together to fight. So why is he back here, at the start? For what _purpose_?

There’s nothing to do but wait and see.

* * *

Despite Time’s intentions to simply observe, it’s not like it goes exactly the same. He’s practiced, but he makes mistakes – many of their battles are chaotic, and there are _so_ many of them, he can’t remember every detail. And every small change accumulates. His relationships with the eight of them shift, subtly at first, but when they finally reach the end again, he’s closer this time to some, more distant with others. The group dynamics move to accommodate.

They’re still victorious. Twilight still hugs him fiercely, and demands he lives a good life. The threat is still defeated and everyone is alive and safe and happy – if only sad that they must now inevitably part.

As everyone steps through the portal, Time hangs back at the last second. The other portals all vanish, bar his – so nobody else had stayed behind, nothing went wrong there.

He waits, and scours the room, just in case. A relic overlooked, a scrap of dark magic left behind, perhaps?

There’s nothing. Only the faintly humming portal waiting for him.

He shifts from foot to foot. Glances over his shoulder at the door, but everything is in its place. No new foes have appeared. Everything is at peace.

He braces himself, takes a breath, and steps through.

* * *

It is madness to do the same thing again and again expecting a different result, but Time is patient, and watches, and learns. His first dozen attempts at stopping the moon from falling had been panicked and confused and rushed, and with the power of hindsight he knows he could have saved himself weeks of suffering if he’d simply spent some time _observing_ before enacting a plan of action.

This is not Termina, however, and there is no falling moon. There is no clear event he must stop, no obvious quest. Things don’t go _perfectly_ , but the losses and injuries sustained are minimal, and hardly worth mentioning. It doesn’t make any _sense_.

Twilight hugs him fiercely. “Live a good life, without any regrets,” he says, voice tight. “ _Promise_ me.”

Time hugs him back. “The same to you,” he says, then can’t resist throwing in, “See you again soon.”

Twilight just looks confused, but Time smiles at him. An idea occurs to him with the jest, and he grabs Twilight’s wrist, and tugs him towards the portal he’d chosen. “In fact, I’m not so sure it needs to be goodbye at all.” Twilight stumbles after him with wide eyes, as they step through the portal together.

Time steps out of a portal, alone, to a now-familiar horizon.

Twilight greets him the same as he always does – with a cautious stare, but unfamiliarity. It’s their first time meeting, all over again.

That’s one option ruled out, at least. Sharing portals doesn’t allow anyone else to remember their previous journey. And the Goddess apparently doesn’t _need_ different portals to send them different places, either. Nine portals is just her way of being polite.

* * *

Time steps through a portal for the sixth time, and is back at the beginning.

He can’t figure it out. He’s chosen a different portal at the end, each time since the second. Walked through with Twilight once, then another time with Warriors. Waited two full days before stepping through on the fifth, until hunger and thirst drove him forward. Tried to escape the chamber with Farore’s Wind, tried destroying the doors locking him in with every tool in arsenal. Kept his attention sharp for months, for anything they could have overlooked, for anything the Goddess could possibly be displeased with.

There is no other path he can find, no impending disaster to stop, no evil overlooked. They go where the portals lead. They save Hyrule again and again and again. They overcome every trial.

The seventh time, he starts getting more drastic. There must be some other path, something non-obvious. Surely he wouldn’t be sent back without a _reason_? The Goddess can be cruel, but never has he known her to do things without _purpose_.

He leads them off path. Uses foreknowledge to attack enemies earlier, set up ambushes. Tries avoiding portals, but it doesn’t work – they follow them, persistent, and he can only put off his fellow heroes for so long. _When_ they go through them doesn’t matter – they drop them at the same time regardless.

He lets a black lizalfos escape, one time, just to see if it might bring him a clue. It comes back later and stabs Hyrule in the back. The young hero dies, bleeding out in Legend’s arms despite their frantic efforts to pour potions down his throat before it’s too late.

Time slips away, plays his ocarina, and disposes of the creature with more prejudice than he had the first time.

One battle, he intervenes where Wild took a blow meant for Wind. It glances off his armour instead of their cook’s head, but the enemies he’d been fighting instead overwhelm Sky. The Chosen Hero loses a hand.

Time plays his ocarina. Sparing Wild another scar isn’t worth it.

They arrive in his Hyrule, but he doesn’t lead them to the ranch – he usually uses the opportunity to catch Malon up on his current predicament, but he wonders if perhaps there’s some event or detail he misses because he dares to neglect his duties to visit home.

Twilight is missing the next day, and Warriors sports Twili curse marks along his arms and crawling up his face, wounds from a war waged across timelines that had been all the fiercer. No one seems aware of the change.

Time quietly leaves the camp, plays his ocarina, and brings the boys to meet Malon. The knowledge it brings should be joyous, but is instead now heavy with grim responsibility.

He stops telling Malon about the cycle, after that.

Through trial and error, over several cycles, he learns what he can change, and what things unravel destiny. Many details don’t matter at all. There are certain events – the visit to the ranch, specific battles, first meetings – which seem fixed points from which any deviation leads only to loss. Other moments occur like leaves washing down a river, catching on a rock, floating ashore at different times but to the same ends.

At the end of it all, every time, they are victorious, and Time is left trapped inside a temple, staring at a portal.

* * *

One time, when they head through the portal after the visit to the ranch, Time elects to go last. Once the others have all stepped through, he turns, and heads back home.

There is nothing, he thinks, preventing him from simply _staying_ in his time, is there? There are eight other heroes to take up the quest. He’s not so vain to think they _need_ him to succeed, after all – they all managed the first time just fine without his foreknowledge. And if disaster is visited upon his Hyrule, he’ll know, and then it’s a simple matter of playing his ocarina, and stepping through the portal after all.

He walks several hours, retracing his steps back through Hyrule Field, making his way to Lon Lon Ranch, steeling his heart against looming guilt and responsibility. Trying his hardest not to contemplate what they’ll think when they turn, and wait, and he never steps through the portal after them.

He never makes it home. With the ranch in sight, a portal opens beneath his feet, and he is falling, tumbling, and he crashes out the other side.

Legend looks over his shoulder, and guffaws. “You alright there, Old Man? Tripped over your own feet?” He’s a mere few steps in front of him, as he had been when Time had turned his back on the first portal and chose to leave.

Time closes his eye for a moment, and takes a long, slow breath.

Sometimes the portals did that – sometimes they swept them up, did not even do them the courtesy of a choice. This is the first time _that_ portal has happened, though, and it is telling. There could be no more obvious sign.

“Hey, are you alright?” Twilight asks, brow creased in concern. He heads over to help him to his feet.

He isn’t. He isn’t alright at all.

He just wants to _escape_.

* * *

Despite a dozen journeys with his fellow heroes, Time has yet to become used to working as a _team_. He can certainly preach it, but he’s never managed to internalise it – it’s often only due to Warriors’ or Twilight’s prodding that he remembers he has other heroes to rely on at all.

Desperate times, however.

His first instinct is to confide in Twilight, but he recoils at the thought of his protégé’s reaction. So he goes for the practical choice – Warriors, who is both the most insistent that they all learn to work together, and the next most familiar with involuntary time travel.

A few days into their quest, it’s trivial to arrange the two of them on watch together so they can talk in private. Time waits until the others are asleep, and gestures to Warriors with a jerk of his head to a spot just out of earshot of the camp. Warriors nods and follows him.

“What’s on your mind?” he asks without preamble.

“A quandary I’m seeking advice in,” Time explains.

That stops Warriors short – he’d evidently been expecting to _receive_ advice, rather than be asked for it. “…About a battle?” he asks, then snaps his fingers. “Or perhaps, love? You might think yourself a hard sell Old Man, but women are far more open about scars than you’d guess. And there’s plenty we can do to brush you up – a new hairstyle would do you wonders, have you considered growing it out?”

No one has noticed his wedding ring yet this cycle, so he lets the remark slide with patient humour. “My love life is a good deal better than yours,” he assures him. “We’ve met before, you realise, _Captain_.”

Warriors breaks into a grin. “So it’s true, then? I thought those markings on your face looked familiar. _And_ that sword. You finally grew into it!”

“I’m surprised you didn’t ask sooner.” Warriors usually only waits until the third night to bother him about his resemblance to a child he once fought with.

“You’ve changed a lot,” Warriors defends. “Given the timelines – well, there was a chance the kid’s mask was modelled after _you_ , if you came from an earlier period.” He hesitates. “And, well… I guess I wanted to think that maybe you got to have a quiet life, after all that.” His gaze darts to the scar on his face, but he doesn’t ask, and Time doesn’t offer.

“Would that we all could,” is all he says, instead. “That wasn’t what I meant, though, when I said we’ve met before.”

“Huh?”

“This journey we’re all on. I’ve done it before.”

The Captain goes still at that. “…Cia?”

“Possibly. She is the reason why I’m bringing this up with you.”

Warriors frowns. “She was my first thought, when I saw all of us gathered together,” he admits. “I don’t have any reason to think she’s gone back to her old ways, though. And it’s too convoluted. Why bring me into it, when I can warn all of you about her intentions? Or you, for that matter. She was the one who alerted me to the portal in the first place, but it was Zelda and Impa who signed off me going through.”

“Did she say anything about it?”

“Nothing. Lana checked it out too, told me it led to a different time and place, but since it wasn’t one of hers, she couldn’t tell me where.” He folds his arms, thinking. “What exactly happened?”

“We were victorious,” Time explains simply – Warriors knows better than to ask details on matters involving time travel. “Then nine portals formed – one for each of us, presumably to take us home. Except in my case, I stepped through back to the day and place where our quest first started, and none of you could recall it.”

“Only you?” Warriors clarifies. Time nods. “That’s… strange.” He paces for a moment. “How many times have you done this?”

“This is the fourth time,” Time lies.

Warriors nods briskly. “Right, so it’s a pattern then. Safe to assume if it were something obvious you would have spotted it on the second or third go through, but that it’ll keep happening until you find some way to stop it. Have you told anyone before?”

Time shakes his head.

Warriors scowls, but concedes, “At least you’re telling me now, I guess. You’ve come a long way from that secretive kid after all.”

If he only knew.

“It’s weird that it’s only you, though. Is the timeline splitting?” He shakes his head. “It can’t be that, if it’s Hylia, or at least one of her incarnations, creating these portals… that’s far too destabilising. And there’s not three, or four really, of you showing up, so – you’re not being physically sent back by the portal.” He grimaces, running a hand through his hair. “This is beyond anything we encountered, even when things went haywire. I think you need to consult with someone who really understands how this works.”

Time raises an eyebrow. “Someone like the ‘Hero of Time’, perhaps?”

Warriors scowls, and swipes at his shoulder. “Still a sarcastic little brat under there, aren’t you? But I get your point, Lana and Cia are probably the only people who would know more than you.”

Through the course of their journey, they visit his Hyrule, Legend’s, Twilight’s, and Wild’s, and a dozen others at unknown points in the timeline, with one Four suspects is at least in the temporal _vicinity_ of his. Unfortunately, none are within reach of Warriors’ Hyrule, and more importantly, Lana and Cia. “I’m afraid that although we visit many Hyrules, we never step foot in yours, so unless you have some means of communicating with them...”

“No such luck.” Warriors thinks a bit more, then suggests, “What about your Zelda?”

It’s an idea, and embarrassing that it hasn’t occurred to him before now. Of course, it’s not so easy for him to get an audience with _his_ Zelda – they are not quite strangers, but to most of Hyrule he is a nobody. He could of course always try sneaking in, but the consequences of getting caught as an adult are too high to risk.

Twilight’s Zelda, on the other hand, is just as knowledgeable in magic, and rather dispassionate, which he thinks might serve him well in getting an honest answer. And unlike Time, Twilight _is_ lauded as a hero in his Hyrule, so getting an audience with royalty is a trivial matter. He usually reports to her after they deal with the local threat, in fact.

“It’s worth a shot,” he agrees. She’s not likely to know as much as Cia or Lana would, but after a dozen failed attempts at escaping the cycle, he’s willing to ask.

Warriors pats him on the shoulder. “We’ll figure something out,” he promises.

* * *

Time knows, from experience, that they will visit Twilight’s Hyrule Castle Town roughly six weeks into their journey, so he is content to bide his time until then. Warriors hassles him to tell the others regularly, but doesn’t betray his confidence. He does complain mightily about how Time _uses_ his foreknowledge though, as often as he can.

“I get that there’s some cause and effect issues you want to sidestep, but why not just tell us _some_ things, if you know what’s going to happen? Maybe save us a bit of trouble?” he asks one time, when the others are out of earshot.

“What point to efficiency when one can enjoy the journey?” Time replies easily. “It’s the first time for all of you. I would never deprive you of it.”

“Of trips into town asking around, sure. But you let us walk into an ambush three days ago!” Warriors argues.

“Did I?” Time asks serenely, and leaves the Captain stewing over what he could possibly mean by that.

Some ambushes he can avoid without consequence. Others, it’s much easier to let himself take a spear to the side than it is play his ocarina for days, rescuing his comrades from gruesome deaths. He’s become rather good at minimising the damage without dodging it entirely.

There’s also the matter that ultimately his knowledge of the nature of their enemy is of little use in ending the conflict early. They can only travel where the portals take them. There are no shortcuts. The portals are among the fixed points he cannot change – they appear at certain moments, stay or follow until they’re used, and lead to the same places and times regardless of when they step through them. And should he try to circumvent them alone, they will simply appear under him, and throw him to where he’s supposed to be.

Eventually, one of those portals finally leads them to Twilight’s Hyrule, where they put down a threat to the currently-being-renovated Hyrule Castle Town. Twilight usually goes to report to his Zelda on his own while the rest of them make the most of their proximity to bars and a marketplace, but on this occasion Time tags along. They go to meet the Princess in her private study – one of the first parts of the Castle restored to normal, the room painted a warm orange in the sunset.

“I was hoping we could discuss something in private, if you’d allow, Princess,” Time addresses her formally once Twilight’s finished explaining everything that’s been happening. His protégé pauses in surprise, and he adds to him, “It’s a magical matter sensitive to my Zelda, you see. I’m not certain if the royal family want it to be common knowledge.”

The explanation quells Twilight’s concern, and the mention of magic kills his interest. “If it’s alright with you, Princess…?” Twilight ventures.

“Certainly,” she replies calmly. “Thank you, Link. I wish all of you luck and safety in your journey.”

Twilight bows awkwardly and leaves the study, presumably to join the others at the bar Warriors and Legend had staked out earlier. Zelda waits until his footsteps recede in the distance before turning her sharp gaze on him. “So how may I help you, Sir Hero?”

“I’m not altogether certain you can, but my need is great enough that I must explore all options,” Time replies. “I must also confess, I lied about the purpose of our discussion.”

“I suspected.” She’s so different from his Zelda – more than just brown hair instead of blonde, and the darker hue of her eyes, the doll-like perfection of her face. She’s serious, and studious. It’s clear she rarely leaves the castle, even now. “I cannot imagine any secret of the royal family that would cause one of us to seek counsel across the centuries.”

Time grimaces. “I’m afraid my issue is of a more personal nature.” He pauses, choosing his words delicately. “In this timeline, I’m likely unknown, but my official title is the Hero of Time.”

Her gaze grows interested and wary in equal measure. “We have… records of such a hero, though they are few and, I’ve always felt, frustratingly vague.”

There’s something she’s withholding, he suspects, but it doesn’t matter. The royal family will always have secrets, no matter how many cursed wells Time unearths. “It’s possibly only tangentially related to my current problem, but it might be relevant. Allow me to explain.” Time lays out his dilemma as succinctly as he can. Zelda listens carefully, scratching a few notes on parchment with a feather quill as he talks.

“Quite the predicament,” she comments once he’s finished.

“I’m just about out of ideas,” Time admits. “So if you have any I haven’t tried yet, I would be in your debt.”

She thinks for a long moment, a single finger dragging along the parchment with her notes. “Ideas? No. These are magics that I myself have never tampered with. They are… risky, as you well know. And the power involved is not trivial. To circumvent it, or override it, may not be possible for any mortal being. But…” Here, she hesitates.

“What is it?” he prods.

“I can perhaps discern a _why_.”

It’s more than what he’s been able to learn on his own, but something about her tone suggests he’s not going to like it. He gestures for her to continue.

“The commonality is you,” Zelda says, expression impassive but voice terribly, achingly gentle. “I can see the ghost of it, the strands of magic and fate twisted around you. My only guess - and it is _only_ a guess, Sir Hero - is that this journey has changed something about you, something which has the potential to knock destiny off its course.”

It’s unspoken between them that given his abilities, his power to alter destiny is immense indeed. The conclusion, however, is nothing short of devastating. “It’s a containment measure,” he murmurs.

Zelda inclines her head. “Perhaps. As I said, it is only a guess.”

Robotically, Time thanks her for her insights and excuses himself. She watches him leave with pitying eyes.

This here, finally, the _purpose_ he’d searched so hard for. Somehow, he has become a paradox of Hylia’s own making, and this is how she solves it. She’s trapped him here, in this loop, where he can no longer damage other timelines. A point from which he can’t progress.

Time hums the Song of Storms under his breath as he leaves the castle, a mad soliloquy to the situation he’s found himself in. It was the same, in a way. A perfect circle, a closed loop from which there was no escape, only eternity. Round and round and round and round he goes.

It will drive him mad, in the end. Madder than the man in the windmill, madder than Tingle, perhaps. He can forsee it yet there’s nothing he can do. His attempts at knocking destiny off its course only costs _others_ – and he is not yet mad enough to sacrifice others to save himself.

“Did she know anything that could help?” Warriors asks that evening, when the others are too deep in their cups to pay attention.

“No,” Time replies. He is beyond help.

* * *

Things proceed as normal after that. Time goes through the motions, conscious of Warriors’ concerned gaze at his back. The Captain presses him about a plan occasionally, writes Lana letters he sends off with the Postman, but they never receive a reply. Interference even in this, Time suspects.

In the end, they are victorious, and nine portals bloom into existence around them.

“Wait,” Warriors said, grabbing his sleeve. “You’re not-”

Time shakes his head. ‘After’ he mouths, and gets swept up in the familiar routine of farewells and well-wishes.

As everyone steps through the portals, this time Warriors stays back with him. He purses his lips, staring at him. “You didn’t tell anyone else at all, not even until the end.”

“It seems there will be other opportunities,” Time remarks wryly. “Thank you for keeping it to yourself, though.”

Warriors shakes his head. “Only because you insisted, and I’m not risking messing with time travel conundrums I don’t fully understand. Lana beat _that_ much into my head.” He huffs, and grabs Time’s hand. “Well then. I’ve been thinking. Since nothing else worked, why not just come through my portal with me?”

Time blinks. “Pardon?”

“I know we never got a reply, but if you come with me, Lana or Cia can send you home, and you don’t have to rely on one of these damn things.” He jerks his thumb at the portal Time had been standing in front of. “If we can’t trust the Goddess to get you home, then we’ll just do it ourselves!”

He’s never told Warriors that he’s tried that before. Never explained that it won’t work. Nor can he dismiss the suspicion that the Guardians of Time might _know_ and be complicit. If the goal is to contain him from doing further damage to the timelines, they might very well enforce it.

But Warriors looks _so confident_ in his plan, Time can’t bear to tell him the truth.

“It’s worth a try,” Time lies, and lets Warriors tug him through the portal after him.

What good would the truth do, after all?

* * *

“Have we met before?” Warriors asks around the campfire, the second night into the next cycle.

“Why do you ask?” Time says. He knows better than to hope, but he’s always careful not to show his hand, just in case. Warriors usually singles him out to ask privately first, but Time hasn’t organised an overlapping watch for them yet.

Warriors frowns. “Your sword looks familiar. And the marks on your face – well, there was this kid, once…” He skirts around asking directly, but Time is at ease. He’s had this conversation dozens of times before, after all.

“I never told you my title back then, did I?” Time answers indirectly. “I’m surprised Lana didn’t clue you in.”

Warriors breaks into a grin. “It _is_ you! By the Goddess is it weird, though – you’re all grown up and serious now!”

“The two of you have met before this?” Wild asks curiously. He’s only joined them today, and is still in the process of introductions.

“A long time ago for me,” Time says.

“My adventure involved some issues with timelines, and we crossed paths, fought together for a while,” Warriors explains while still offering as few details as he can. Time lets him. The war had been far from a pleasant experience - one he imagines the Captain is not keen to recount. He’ll take fighting monsters and traversing temples over fighting other hylians any day.

“Oh,” Sky says. “I was actually wondering the same thing.”

Warriors gives him a curious glance. “You crossed paths with more than just me?”

Twilight looks extremely invested in the conversation. “It’s news to me,” Time replies. “What makes you say that?”

Sky shrugs. “I don’t usually have such an easy time talking to new people. But talking to you, it feels like having a conversation with someone I’ve known for years.”

Time pats him on the shoulder. “That’s kind of you. Honestly, I feel the same way about all of you.”

Sky gives him a tentative – though slightly confused – smile.

* * *

Nine portals.

Twilight hugs him fiercely. “Live a good life, without any regrets,” he says, voice tight. “ _Promise_ me.”

Time hugs him back. He’s practiced at it, but it feels insincere, when in his heart he knows he’ll see him again in a matter of hours. “The same to you,” he says. “I couldn’t be more proud.”

His tone might not be right, but it never seems to catch Twilight’s notice. There are tears in his eyes, but he’s a hero to the last.

Twilight doesn’t call him on his failure to make that promise. It’s a promise Time is beginning to think he will never be able to keep.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is only the second time loop fic I've done but every time I'm torn between exploring endless possible loops and hurrying to the end.
> 
> This chapter has a bit of a middle-child syndrome but I hope it works regardless.

For all the monotony, the times when they gather around the campfire in the moments of peace remain a balm on Time’s increasingly weary soul. They’re best in the middle of their journey, when they’ve all become familiar with each other but the end is not quite in sight, when Time can pretend he’s simply fallen into a comfortable routine with his fellow Links, and that these endless days are a forever he’s chosen rather than one thrust upon him.

He engages in conversation less, as it begins to tread well-worn paths, but he’s yet to tire of their company. Indeed, hearing Wind’s story about the time he fought an octorok the size of an island for the twentieth time is no different to Talon regaling him and Malon with the story of how he bought his first cow for the ranch at least twice a year. It’s one of Talon’s better stories, and the joy he gets in telling it makes it always worth sitting through it.

“What about you, Old Man?” Sky asks. “What’s the best artefact you ever collected?” They’re currently competing over ‘rare items’, and Legend is taking deep pleasure in trouncing everyone’s artefacts with his own version.

“Please let it be something this veteran over here doesn’t already have,” Warriors comments sourly to that end.

Legend gives him a grin that’s all teeth. “Just because you don’t collect anything other than _clothes-_ ”

Time’s fingers go to his hand, and Twilight interrupts, “Not your wedding ring again! Choose something else.”

Has he talked about his wedding ring that much this cycle? No matter. Time shrugs. “You’ve already seen my masks. I doubt I have anything else our Veteran doesn’t have a better version of. Or Wild, for that matter.” Wild rubs the back of his neck sheepishly as he carefully puts his pile of dragon scales and lynel horns back into his slate.

“C’mon, you must have _something_ ,” Wind needles him. “Something you haven’t shown off before!”

Another time, he’d shown off the Lens of Truth, and in desperation of novelty, Time digs through his bag to find something else. “Aha, here it is.” He holds up the crystal sickle, so it reflects the firelight.

“Pretty,” Hyrule murmurs appreciatively, and Time hands it over to him to inspect closer. “What is it?”

“It’s called the Shard of Agony.”

Hyrule immediately hands it off to Twilight like it burns. Twilight holds it like one would a particularly cranky cucoo, eyes worried.

“What a name,” Legend comments into the following silence. “What’s it do?”

“Warns me when hidden spiders are near, mostly.” Twilight relaxes, and hands the crystal sickle around to the others.

Legend guffaws. “That’s it? What do you need that for?”

“You’d be surprised,” Time replies serenely.

“With an ominous name like that, you had me worried,” Wild remarks, tapping at the crystal curiously before handing it back to him. He drops it on the way, but Time catches it mid-air and returns it to his pouch.

“Well, it’s unique, but I’d say our veteran is still in the lead,” Hyrule admits.

“Thought an antique like you might have some actual good antiques, Old Man,” Warriors ribs him.

“They’re probably brand new to him,” Wind says with a grin. “Cutting edge technology.”

“He has to make them yet, I bet,” Four adds.

“Hey!” Twilight gets offended on his behalf. “Aren’t you from an era _before_ his?”

“Yes, perhaps our smithy should be making _me_ some rare artefacts so I can impress you all,” Time comments dryly.

“I think you’re ancient artefact enough, Old Man,” Four jibes.

The others break into roaring laughter at that, tossing out fresh new outlandish guesses for his age.

“Come clean, Old Man, how old are you, really?” Warriors asks before they can start getting to the quadruple digits.

Time just smiles and says nothing.

* * *

He doesn’t plan for Legend.

It’s halfway through a cycle. Legend is on watch, but Time can’t sleep. It’s the night of a new moon in an unknown – thought familiar by now – Hyrule, and the sky is awash with stars. Time is resting on a fallen tree beyond the edge of the camp to see them better, and Legend pauses when he approaches, evidently having had the same idea.

He half expects the veteran to go elsewhere, but Legend is stubborn enough that he simply sits a polite distance away. Far enough to discourage conversation, but not enough to prohibit it. The two of them have never been close, in any cycle. Twilight, Warriors, and Wind are the three who most often seek him out. Time gets to know Wild through Twilight usually. His relationships with Four and Sky and Hyrule wax and wane over the cycles based entirely on how much effort he puts into them. Legend, however, remains an enigma wrapped in snark and jabs and pointed jokes, who is none the less overwhelmingly reliable when it matters.

He thus expects they will sit there in companionable silence until Legend’s watch ends, but his fellow hero surprises him by breaking the silence first. “Can’t sleep?”

Time glances over at him, but Legend is simply looking up at the stars, nonchalant. “Not tonight, I think. I can take watch in your place, if you’d like.”

“Nah. I’m not really tired yet.” He pauses, then asks, far too casually, “Something on your mind?”

Time winces internally. The past few days have been rough – Twilight’s sent him more than a few worried glances – but he hadn’t realised he’d slipped enough that _Legend_ felt the need to inquire after his well-being. Or perhaps it’s _because_ it’s Legend – because they have never been close, Time doesn’t try as hard to pretend everything is okay around him, comfortable in the knowledge that the other hero won’t pay him any attention. Until now.

It’s a whim, and a self-indulgent moment of weakness. Time answers, “I’m trapped in a temporal loop.”

“Hah?” Legend looks over at him. “Did you just say-”

“It’s been at least a dozen times I’ve gone on this journey with all of you now.” It’s technically true, at least.

Legend stares at him, wide-eyed and confused.

“We win, every time.” He keeps his tone conversational. “No one dies, despite numerous close calls. We do everything expected, and then everyone goes home. Except for me. I return to the beginning, and do it all again.”

A scowl breaks over Legend’s face. “Haha, good one, Old Man. You nearly had me going there for a second.” Time lets the silence sit, and grow. Legend shifts uncomfortably, and finally cracks. “…You’re not serious, are you?”

Time waits a moment more, then forces a grin on his face. “Of course not. You should have seen your face, though.” He stands up, and stretches. “I might go for a walk around camp. Perhaps that will tire me out enough. Do let me know if you change your mind about watch, though.” He retreats before Legend can throw something at him.

* * *

One week later, Time is the one on watch, and Legend corners him.

“It wasn’t a joke, was it?” he demands.

It has been an exceptionally long time since Time has been genuinely _startled_ , to the point where he doesn’t have a response.

Legend doesn’t need one. He barrels on with, “I’ve been watching. You _know_ things, things you can’t possibly know. You asked that crazy cook to make those wild fried greens for Traveller when he was having a bad day, and now they’re his favourite food. But _the cook had never made those before –_ how did you know he could, never mind that Traveller would like it so much? _None_ of us have had it. And that battle yesterday? When we took that stupid long route instead of the obvious path, the one that would have led us directly into the middle of that moblin camp? Or what about the day before, when we needed shelter from the rain, and you led us straight to that cave? None of us have been in this Hyrule before!” He stops, chest heaving, out of breath from his rant.

“That’s an outlandish conclusion to make from a series of coincidences,” Time replies, voice measured, but before he can continue Legend cuts him off again.

“Don’t give me that. The smithy’s noticed too, he just thinks you’re observant. But you’re _careful_ around him. And around the farm boy, too. We’ve all thought you were just enjoying being _aloof_ and _mysterious_ but that’s not it, is it? You’re worried about giving away that you know more than you should, because you’ve done it all before.” He folds his arms. “I know I’m right. Once I started thinking about it, all sorts of oddities began lining up. From all the way back to when we first met. So just tell me the truth already.”

Time sighs. This is the price he pays for indulging in a moment of self-pity. He’s seen before what Legend is like when he thinks he’s found a secret – such as all the times he’s found out about Wolfie, or anything at all about Hyrule. “You’ve caught me,” he admits, hands up in surrender. “Now what?”

“Now- what do you mean, ‘now what?’ Explain it to me!” Legend demands.

“I already have, I thought.”

“More than that! How many times?”

“Around a dozen,” Time lies.

Legend narrows his eyes at him. “And it’s only you? No one else remembers?”

“Unless you’re all fantastic actors and liars.”

Legend snorts. “I’d say you have us all beat, Old Man, just on this alone. What I want to know is why you haven’t told anyone. I would have thought you’d confide in goat cheese brains, at least.”

Time raises an eyebrow. “How do you think he would react?”

Legend chews on that for a second, and concedes, “Okay, I wouldn’t tell him either, in your shoes.”

“Besides, the problem is magical in nature. I think it would simply frustrate him, being unable to help.”

 _Live a good life, without any regrets_ , Twilight says to him, every time without fail, even in the cycles where he doesn’t confirm their blood relation, where they’re not quite as close. He’s not sure he wants to face a scenario where those words won’t come, and what his protégé might say instead.

Legend leans forward. Being presented with a problem to solve has caught the veteran’s interest even more than the prospect of a secret. “Magical in nature, huh. Then why didn’t you bring it to one of us? You’re powerful, Old Man, but I don’t get the impression that magic is something you’ve studied. You’re like our traveller, you just use it without thinking about it. Which is an enormous waste of talent, by the way.”

“I _have_ told others before, you know, even if I haven’t this time,” Time explains. “I’ve consulted with the Captain, and with Zelda.” He considers the Hero of Legend thoughtfully. “Although, since you know now, I suppose it won’t hurt to get your perspective on things. Since, as you say, you likely know the most about magic of any of us.” Even if he’s not on the same level of Zelda, he _is_ here in the thick of things.

He thinks Zelda has the right of it, but that doesn’t mean Time isn’t still going to try to find a way to escape.

Legend nods, and Time is certain he wouldn’t have accepted any other outcome. “Tell me everything you can,” he demands. “Everything you’ve learned so far.”

Time lays out the pertinent details. It’s only the third time he’s done so to anyone other than Malon, but the words still want to stick to the roof of his mouth, still tighten his throat, still curdle on his tongue. It’s all too similar to the times he’s tried to tell people of his first quest, of a Hyrule seven years under Ganon’s rule, of explaining to old friends the things they’d done in another timeline only to be met with wariness and scepticism.

The fear is baseless, of course, in his present company. Legend has come to him _wanting_ to believe it, and listens with nothing more than academic interest.

They sit in silence for a short while once Time is finished, staring at the crescent moon rising above the horizon. Then, abruptly, Legend says, “It’s you, isn’t it?”

Time turns back to him. “Pardon?”

“It’s you. Something’s gone wrong with _your_ continuity, so this is, I don’t know what you’d call it. Containment?”

Time’s heart sinks. Legend’s smart, he knows that, but the fact that he so quickly reached the same conclusion Zelda did lends the theory even more weight. “Zelda thought the same.”

Legend scowls. “It’s stupid, though. Why bring you on this quest in the first place if you’re just going to wind up trapped in it?” He grumbles to himself a while, then announces, “The way I see it then, there’s only two ways out. Either we find what it is about _you_ that’s changed enough that you’re a risk to the timeline, and fix it, or we find a way to break you out of it by force.”

“Even at the risk of another timeline?”

The younger hero turns his face away. “It’s not right. It’s not right that any one of us gets pulled into this quest, when we all thought we might finally be done. And it’s even worse if there’s one of us who can’t go home. What’s even the point then? Screw the Goddess’s will. You didn’t volunteer for this.”

He’s lucky, he thinks, that he messed up with Legend out of everyone. He doesn’t think he could handle any of them giving the Goddess the benefit of the doubt. More to the point, Legend doesn’t do _pity_. He’s results-oriented, maybe even more than Warriors.

“Your help will be appreciated,” is all Time says in response.

He doesn’t expect anything to come of it, but hope isn’t an emotion easily quashed in one possessing the Hero’s Spirit.

* * *

The nice thing about Legend knowing is that he doesn’t even suggest that Time tell everyone else – the concept of _not_ keeping it a secret doesn’t even occur to him, even as he scolds his elder for doing the same.

The strangest side effect is that this is the closest he and Legend have ever been. All it took was a shared secret, a problem to solve, and the barriers between them melt away. Now Legend is the one who drops himself next to him by the fire, whispering conspiracies or ideas to him at every juncture, dragging him away to perform experiments whenever they have opportunity.

They’re rarely anything Time hasn’t already attempted or considered, but he goes along with them anyhow. It costs him nothing, and he’ll never know when Legend might learn something from the attempt.

Legend hums, inspecting one of the static portals that Time has put off telling the others about just yet, to buy the two of them some time to experiment with it. “The amount of magic it requires is staggering. It’s why time travel is best done with an artefact – I used the Harp of Ages, I’d guess you use that fancy ocarina of yours.” Time tilts his head in acknowledgement. “The artefact amplifies your magic far beyond normal, but it still falls well short of one of these. So that’s a bust.”

“If we were to pool resources, though?” Time suggests. Their current strategy is to find some way to take control of or disrupt one of the portals themselves, since they act as blockers, points he can’t time travel past using his usual methods.

Legend shakes his head. “You lose efficiency, mixing magic. Maybe we’d suffer it less than most, given our situation, but the gains won’t be great enough to make a significant difference. Especially since you’ve already got the strongest magic among us, Old Man, much as I hate to say it.”

“Our traveller does some fairly impressive magic,” Time points out. More than just healing, some of the elemental spells Hyrule pulls out of thin air are equal to feats he’s only seen the likes of the Sages perform.

Legend scowls. “Yeah, he’ll be stronger than you _at your age_ , whatever that is, but he’s gonna need another ten years to give you a run for your rupees in that department.” He points a finger at him. “You should know better than anyone that magic gets stronger with age, even if you never seem to make use of it. Could you do much of anything as kid, even with a Great Fairy’s boon? I certainly couldn’t. Even the strongest of Sages and Wisemen couldn’t do much more than run a magic lantern as children, most of them don’t get any notoriety until they’re middle aged at best. Even _Zelda_ usually doesn’t get a proper hold of her powers until she’s a teenager.”

All facts Time is painfully aware of. “Regardless, that means we’re still short of enough magic to override the power of the portals.”

Legend screws up his face, and admits, “Yeah. Another dead end. It’s… maybe Ganon would have enough, or Zelda – maybe Traveller’s Zelda, the one who slept a hundred years or whatever? But we can’t exactly bring either of them into this.”

“It was worth exploring.” After so many failures in so many other cycles, Time takes the disappointment in stride.

Something about his tone of voice must give him away, though, as Legend gives him a hard look.

“I’ve been meaning to ask… It’s been far more than a dozen times, hasn’t it?”

Time doesn’t reply.

They stand there in silence, staring at the portal. It sits out of place among the trees of the forest, unreal in the way the fluttering shadows of leaves don’t show on it, how the wisps of purple mist dancing around the edges don’t react to the gentle breeze.

“You’ve been humouring me, then.”

“No,” Time corrects immediately. “You’ve provided a fresh perspective. Even if we haven’t found a solution, we’ve eliminated more possibilities than I’d thought of before. Confirmed some theories. You’ve helped.”

“But at the end of it, you’re still staring down another loop, aren’t you?” Time has no response to that. “We probably need to abandon the portal angle, then. I can’t think of anything else to try on that front. We’d be better off looking for the cause of why you’re stuck in this situation in the first place.”

Time suspects that approach is futile – after all, what could Legend learn in the few weeks left that Time wouldn’t already be aware of? – but he simply nods his assent. “Let’s fetch the others and move on, then.”

* * *

They are victorious. Nine portals bloom into existence around them.

“Portals?” Sky asks. “Now?”

“I guess this is the Goddess’s way of saying it’s time to go home?” Hyrule suggests. His voice quivers on the last word.

Wind stares at them, his previous jubilation drained. “Is this… goodbye?”

Four slaps him on the back. “Don’t treat it like a sad thing! We get to see our homes and loved ones again. All adventures end someday, and I’m going to remember this one fondly.”

“He’s right,” Warriors agrees. “It means we did our duty. It’s been an honour fighting with all of you, and I’ll never forget it.”

The others are nodding in agreement, and dissolve into a by now familiar rabble.

Legend grabs his arm in the fuss. “Old Man,” he hisses under his breath. “Is this-?”

Time gently disengages from his grip. “Yes. I’ll stay a while after. But don’t you want to say goodbye to everyone else properly, first?”

“But what if we need them to-”

“Then we’ll do it next time.” Time is already resigned to a next time. It’s been selfish enough to bring Legend in on it this time – he won’t subject the others to such a bittersweet victory. After all, for them, it’s the end of a successful adventure.

For a moment, he’s worried that Legend will rip that choice away from him, but then Hyrule is there, and Time watches him hesitate, then wrap the other boy in a hug. He understands, then – he no more wants to send Hyrule onward with a heavy heart than Time does. Time turns his attention to Wind, and Four, and goes through the familiar process of well wishes and farewells and last-minute pictographs by rote.

All too quickly, they’re at the final moments. Things have changed enough that Legend doesn’t pass his usual snarky commentary, instead watching Time with dark eyes as Twilight hugs him fiercely, demanding, “Live a good life, without any regrets. _Promise_ me.”

“I expect the same of you,” Time says, and pats him on the back as they part. “I couldn’t be more proud.”

His descendent blinks back tears and gives him a smile like the sun. Legend has switched to staring at Twilight, stricken.

“Who goes where?” Four asks, eyeing the portals.

Legend normally chimes in here, but he seems shaken by something, so Time replies, “I don’t believe it matters, or there would be some sort of sign.”

“All together, then?” Sky suggests.

Everyone nods, spreading out, a portal each. Hyrule pauses by Legend, prodding him gently, finally jolting the veteran out of his daze. He shakes himself, gives a watery grin to his friend, and moves to the portal next to Time.

“I’ll miss you all!” Wind cries out.

The other seven step through, and their portals vanish. Then it’s only Legend and Time left.

Legend seems frozen, staring at the portal in front of him. Longing, Time thinks. “You can go,” he offers, gently. “You don’t have to stay on my account.”

Legend takes a deep, shuddering breath, hunches his shoulders, and turns back to him. “You don’t deserve this.”

Time glances at his portal. He could avoid this conversation, he knows, but he feels a grim responsibility to never be careless with his fellow hero’s feelings, to treat every cycle as though it could be the last. There had been moments, _dark_ moments, in Termina where he had been cold and careless, some despondent part of him deciding that since he would rewind it anyway, what he said or did didn’t matter. Sometimes it had been necessary, but the guilt of his words and actions afterwards would crush him alive, and make him feel the monster the skull kid had tried to taunt him into becoming.

“It’s not about deserving or undeserving,” Time says. “It’s simply what is.”

“I don’t want to believe that you have to-” Legend cuts himself off. For only the second time, Time regrets telling Legend about the loop. He’s far more distressed than Warriors had been, and he knows too much – Time can’t trick him into believing it will be okay.

Legend is silent for a long time. Finally, he says, “Old Man… ignore what Zelda said, about it being you. That’s… that’s bullshit, okay. You escape this, and get a happy ending, and live a good life afterwards, one that will make your descendants proud.” He rolls up his sleeves, and starts looking around the chamber. “Let’s make the most of this, then, and get you out. You’ve said before that you’re not able to leave this chamber?”

Time shakes his head. “I have Farore’s Wind, but it never responds in the vicinity of a portal.”

Legend nods. “Right, it wouldn’t. These things have a sort of magic dampening field around them. Or maybe it’s that they use _so_ much magic that anything but the strongest magics just get snuffed out near them.”

A point they’ve already gone over, so Time doesn’t comment. Legend turns his attention to the door and walls. “You’ve tried bombs, of course.”

“Of course.”

Legend tears into his arsenal like a man possessed, searching for ways to breach the room. Time goes along with it, perturbed by his sudden fervour. Is it because they’ve become closer over this cycle? Or is it simply because the other hero has never before been faced with a problem he couldn’t solve?

In the end though, even Legend’s stubbornness is defeated by the immovable doors and walls and ceiling. Two portals remain, waiting, even after two days of the chamber being battered by bombs, fire, ice, and everything else they could think of in increasingly eccentric combinations.

Time’s waterskin is empty, and he’s out of rations, and knows that Legend is too.

“It’s time to go.” He keeps the words soft, but Legend still flinches at them. “Don’t you want to go home?”

“I won’t really be going home, though, will I?” Legend responds tiredly, flat on his back on the floor, eyes closed. “It won’t actually happen.”

“Who can say? The Goddess has created this cycle without warning, and may end it just as suddenly.”

“Do you really believe that?”

Time tells so many lies, and this is perhaps one of the few he tells himself. “I have to.”

Legend sighs. “You really do, huh?” He sits up, and gathers his things. He looks haunted. “You’ll tell me again, right? We can skip a lot of experiments – I’ll believe you, if you tell me we’ve tried them before. We’ll get you out of this.”

“Of course,” Time says, guiding Legend to his portal. He clasps him on the shoulder, squeezes it. “Thank you,” he says, injecting all the sincerity he can muster into his voice. “I wound up putting a terrible burden on you, and all I can offer in response is gratitude.”

Legend musters a weak smile. “I don’t know, Old Man. I also accept rupees.”

Time fishes out his sack of rupees and hands it over with a smile. “By all means. I’ll get it back in a few moments.” His sense of humour has taken a turn for the macabre, and Legend has had no small hand in that over the cycles.

Legend barks out a laugh like broken glass. “Is that why we were all splurging on inn rooms last week? There’s barely any left in here.”

“There has to be _some_ advantages to foreknowledge. Knowing how to spend rupees is one of them.”

“I’ll drink to that.” Legend pockets the sack anyway. “See you again soon, I guess,” he laments, and steps through the portal.

Time watches him go, heart heavy.

* * *

A few weeks into the next cycle, Legend approaches him while he’s on watch. “Can’t sleep?” he asks gruffly. “Something on your mind?”

Time glances at him. The Hero of Legend’s shoulders are hunched, his body turned away. They’re still little more than strangers, after all.

The words rest on his lips, but then the memory of Legend’s face, twisted with defeat, flashes before his eyes.

“No,” Time says instead. “Just admiring the stars.”

* * *

“You’re happier than I imagined,” Twilight blurts out a few days after their usual visit to the ranch.

Time pauses his stride. He and Twilight are walking patrol together, but the forest is quiet and warm, the birds are twittering and there are deer about, so it’s really been more of a pleasant stroll. Time already knows they won’t find trouble, after all, so he’s able to lose himself in nature. “Pardon?”

Twilight fidgets. “Um, just, seeing you with Malon, and everything… it was a completely different side of you!” He grins. “I’m glad.”

Time is simply confused. “What were you imagining, then?”

“Oh, uh, there’s just…” Twilight fumbles. “Nothing, really! There’s not much information on you that’s survived until my era. But I guess, you know, that I wondered a lot about… about the hero who came before me.”

Baffling, but Twilight is a kind sort, if occasionally clumsy about it. He and Wild are a pair that way. It’s just like him to spare a thought for other heroes long before he had the chance to meet any. “I see.”

“You never, ah, encountered anything from the hero who came before you? That was our smithy, right?” Twilight ventures.

This is an uncharted conversation for Time, but then, he’s spent more time with Twilight this cycle than usual. In an effort to avoid Legend and any further slip ups, if he’s being honest with himself. “I can’t say I did. Beyond the Master Sword itself, of course.”

“I… see. I guess it’s not likely the two of you are related. You’re almost opposite ends of the spectrum.”

Time chuckles. “You don’t think I could be descended from someone that short, is what you’re saying.”

Twilight laughs. “Can you picture it?” He threads his hands behind his head, stretching as he stares up at the sky, at the sunlight filtering through the leaves. It really is a pleasant day. “I know you said you grew up in the forest, and you didn't know your parents, so how did you, you know, learn to be a hero? How did you learn to fight with a sword?”

Time shrugs. “Through need, and circumstance, mostly. I don’t think skill with a sword is necessarily the most important part, though it certainly helps.” He pats Twilight on the back. “Our Chosen Hero was first of all of us, after all, and there was no one before him to teach him, was there?”

Twilight slumps. “He’s too good! I don’t get it. I guess I need more training.”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself. You’re excellent with a blade, likely better than I was at your age,” Time notes, with pride. “I recognise some of those moves, you know. I gather you were taught?”

Twilight ducks his head, embarrassed. “I had a good teacher, yeah.”

It’s comforting to know that his descendant didn’t stumble into his adventure as unprepared as Time had been as a child. He pats Twilight on the back again, and says, “We should keep moving, or the others will wonder if we’ve found trouble.”

Time’s mood sours as they resume walking, though, the pleasant warmth from the conversation fading with every step. Will he ever escape this loop, to get to see the birth of his child? Teach them the skills that they might one day pass down to Twilight?

He wants to believe. But every time he steps through a portal to a horizon that isn’t home, he starts to doubt a little more.

* * *

“What’s the song you’re always humming?” Wind asks curiously one evening when they’re sitting outside a stable in Wild’s Hyrule. Aside from the family running the place, there’s only an elderly artist and a pair of treasure hunters, so they have the place mostly to themselves.

Time quirks a smile at the young hero. “Would you like me to play it for you?” He pulls out his ocarina.

“Yes!” Wind’s boundless enthusiasm is infectious.

The pair of them are sitting by the cooking pot, under the shelter of a small roof that should keep them dry enough – and if not, the stable itself is only a few steps away. Twilight, Warriors and Wild are out on the road though, trying to coax one of the stable’s dogs into playing fetch. All the better.

“Watch this,” Time tells Wind, then raises his ocarina to his lips and begins to play.

Thunder rumbles, then a moment later clouds gather, and it begins to rain. Warriors squawks, and the three of them run to shelter while the dog barks at the sky and runs in excited circles.

“No way,” Wind says, eyes wide as he stares up at the sky, then back at Time with a growing grin. “No _way_.”

Time just smiles.

Wind gives him a mischievous glance. “You know, I have magic that lets me harness the power of storms! Being able to summon one on demand? We can be _unstoppable_!”

Time ruffles his hair. “You’re _already_ unstoppable. But I can teach it to you, if you like.”

“Yes! Tell me everything!” Wind reaches an arm out of their shelter, as though he can’t believe the rain is real, laughing wildly. “Where did you learn it?”

The smile fades from Time’s face. “…Oh, here and there.”

How to explain a song that has no origin?

It’s a paradox. Just like him. Beautifully contained, going around and around and around forever.

* * *

It starts to be that Time sometimes can’t even bear to sit through the farewells – not when he knows he’ll see them all again in minutes. Those times he simply walks through the portal while everyone is still talking. It’s a breach in his personal philosophy, and the guilt nearly crushes him afterwards, but in the moment he finds his feet moving regardless.

Other times, in the silence of a watch held too many times, he contemplates darker ideas, even as he curses the Goddess, or whichever of her incarnations is responsible for trapping him in this mad cycle. Those nights he hums the Song of Storms under his breath until tears run down his face at the futility of it all.

Even so, Time simply _can’t_ give up. It’s against his very nature. The Hero’s Spirit is known for determination, for endless courage in the face of adversity. For enduring when no others could, for rising up to fight when all others would falter.

Compared to Termina, it’s not even that bad. He has good company, good food, and weeks and days and months where he can sleep regularly, where the only imminent threats he needs to worry about are battles he already knows how to win. It’s not looming overhead, not pressing down on him to the point where every hour, every minute counts. He’s not constantly faced with the despair that no matter what he tries, he can never arrive in time to save Mikau, not faced with the constant fear that a single misstep will not end merely his life but all life. If he falls in this mad cycle the Goddess has trapped him in, he’s comfortably certain that the others will still manage without him. Perhaps with losses, perhaps with struggles, but after endless cycles, he’s taken their measure, and they are all worthy.

They’re his _family_ , as much as Malon and Talon have become, and he loves them all. Enough to endure.

It wears him down, though, as surely as a river smooths a rock over decades.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So now we sort of get to the actual super old lore idea I was playing with and trying to shove into the square peg round hole that is Linked Universe. It's all a bit clumsy and admittedly the whole thing is an excuse for the last couple of paragraphs but I hope you enjoy the ride and thanks for letting me release this pink plot bunny finally. Thanks for reading!

Time stands alone in a stone room with a portal, the others already gone. How many times has it been? Once he stopped experimenting, they started to blend, a kind of muscle memory taking the place of conscious thought.

He stares at the portal, thoughts fracturing. He’s frayed and worn and this is it. He is standing on the precipice of madness. He has tried to be patient, tried to cling to hope, and only been rewarded with more suffering. Hylia has not only discovered the limits of the Hero’s Spirit, but has gone well past them.

No more. He refuses.

_No more_.

He can’t rewind time past a portal normally, but Legend had theorised that magic more powerful than Ganon’s might be able to override that. That brute force could work, when all else fails – an idea abandoned only because they had no means to acquire enough. That idea has sat at the back of his mind ever since. Even at his age now, Time’s magic still falls short of Zelda’s, never mind Ganondorf’s - but there is one being who he thinks might be even stronger.

He reaches into his bag, and pulls out the mask.

It’s never been like his other masks. The other times, he’s been donning a guise, influenced by the spirits housed within, borrowing their form and abilities. The Deity has never felt like a spirit to him though. It’s simply felt like bottled fury and endless anguish. It’s never felt like becoming something _else_. It’s always felt like becoming something _more_.

The mask’s power had grown to scare him, yes, but he is far more scared of the fact that the mask feels like it fits too well. How _easy_ it had become, once he was no longer a child, to forget he was even wearing it.

So it has sat in his pouch, carefully stowed beneath all his other masks, ignored since this whole affair started. Things never became quite dire enough to warrant its use – and with his experience and magic reserves only ever growing, the need for it has become less and less. Until now.

It’s a dangerous experiment, but then, Time is trapped in a loop, and dangerous experiments seem to be the only way he’ll ever escape. And he so desperately, _desperately_ needs to escape.

He slides the mask over his face. No painful transformation comes. His magic surges, flooding and bright, but it doesn’t burn his veins or feel unnatural. It’s like wearing a bespoke tunic, or enchanted earrings.

He welcomes it, and the mask dissolves into ash.

When Time looks at his reflection in his shield, the deity’s marks on his face are complete. He doesn’t feel any different. Invigorated, perhaps, but certainly not corrupted into urges of destruction or villainy.

Perhaps the mask has been siphoning power to him all along. Perhaps most of its essence had already been transferred by the time he stopped using it, scared after he lost control only once, after he saw those first marks on his face. Many of his magical masks seem to weaken from excessive use, leaving fragments of their power behind. Mingling magic often has that effect. And time wore down almost everything, in the end – and that mask had been very, very old.

It hardly matters. The mask has fulfilled the one final job he needed it for – a boost in strength and magic, far beyond his normal limits.

Time raises his ocarina to his lips, takes a breath, and begins to play.

He plays and plays and plays, the song of time, the song of double time, the song of storms, the song of time the song of time the song of time. He plays until he is out of breath, then buys that breath back with the inverted song of time and plays some more. Reality smears around him, but he doesn’t stop, desperate, recklessly spending his magic, forcing the song beyond when it should stop, beyond the limits of the portals which trap him here. Let his existence end. Let it be unmade. Let him somehow, _somehow_ , escape the loop. Rewind it back until it never happens if he must. Until _he_ never happens.

Something shatters, magic warping and twisting and lurching around him, and when Time opens his eye, he’s no longer in the stone room. He’s in an empty field, a night sky stretching gloriously above his head, a gentle breeze rustling knee-deep grass in endless waves around him.

He staggers and falls to his knees, breath and magic spent.

He’s done it. He’s gone back. Back and back and back, back before even Sky’s time, back before the Hero’s Spirit was even a thing.

He laughs, and the sound is cracked and broken. He’s free at last, he’s _escaped_ , but he’s alone. Tossed adrift into an era he doesn’t belong in.

The Song of Storms echoes in his heart, and it begins to rain.

* * *

Eventually, Time sets out to explore the new world. It’s mostly from a lack of idea of what else to do, the habit of moving forward even when there seems to be no point.

He is far enough in the past that the land is unrecognisable. There is a volcano that may one day become Death Mountain, a forest bereft of the Great Deku Tree, a desert without any Gerudo. There’s no Kakariko in any form, no sign of what will be Lake Hylia or the Zora River yet, no Hyrule Castle. No _hylians._

There’s no sign of Zoras yet, either. Gorons exist at least, in the form of travelling merchants instead of the native settlement expected. No Great Fairies, though – the fairies he does find are young, delicate little things, their magic like crumbs of sweet crystal, and incapable of language. They’re in equal terms nervous of and curious about him, so he teaches them words whenever he stops and stays somewhere for a time, heart aching for his friend he’ll now _never_ find. If Navi is anywhere, she is many centuries away from him. Just like Malon and the child he’ll never meet.

He can’t think about it, can’t let himself dwell, even though in the long nights he can’t do anything else. He tries to simply be grateful that he’s free, that he’d broken out of that temporal loop, but he misses his wife. Misses his boys. Misses Epona and Talon and _home_.

Never enough to regret it, but it doesn’t make the loneliness any less.

After some months, he learns of great dragons who guard the land, named for the Golden Goddesses, with power reminiscent of the Giants of Termina. One name catches his attention – _Lanayru_.

It’s not Nayru herself, but anyone bearing her name is bound to be blessed with her powers. And from there, a thin, fragile hope is spun. A way back, perhaps, to _his_ era. To Malon. To home.

He sets out in search. To his surprise, Lanayru lives not in the soothing waters of a lake as expected, but atop a plateau in the vast desert, a small oasis of withered green amidst the dunes, surrounded by what looks like a small army of robots constructing the foundations of a temple. It seems in this era, Faron is considered the patron of water, whereas Lanayru is known for lightning.

The dragon stirs as he approaches. “Oh, a visitor?” His hulking form rises. He is as strange a dragon as Time has ever seen, brown leathery skin instead of scales, top heavy with hands and arms that look almost hylian if not for the hooked, hardened nails poking from the tips. He wears a bright yellow cloak large enough to cover a house, emblazoned with symbols that remind him of the Zora’s Sapphire. Small misty clouds wreath his form, and gather around his mouth in the mimicry of a beard. “This is most unexpected. One of your kind hasn’t been seen on the surface for many years. I am the great dragon Lanayru, tell me, what is your name?” His voice rolls like thunder.

“I am the Hero of Time,” he answers, sidestepping any potential issues he might cause there. “I come from a point far in the future, and I seek a way back.”

“From the future you say?” He rears up, slow even in surprise. “Backwards in time… that is something I’ve been experimenting with, it’s true. Forwards, though, I haven’t a clue where to start. Why ever would anyone _want_ to go forwards? Much better to get there the normal way, I think,” the dragon rumbles.

Time struggles to bite back his irritation. “It’s too long for even a dragon. _You_ don’t exist in my time, after all.”

“A time beyond even me? You _are_ far from home, Hero of Time.” Lanayru leans down to peer at him. His breath mists the air, heedless of the burning sun. “What brings you to this era, then? Why are you here?”

“There is no reason,” Time replies, and can’t stop the bitterness creeping into his voice. He’s here because he had to escape, but as far as he’s concerned, there was no reason for him to have _needed_ to escape in the first place. All Hylia had to do was not summon him on that adventure, not trap him in that mad cycle. He would never have needed to be _contained_ if she didn’t cause whatever unsolvable paradox his summoning led to in the first place. “Hence why I wish to return home.”

“No reason? No, there is _always_ a reason, even if we cannot always see it. We do tend to be blind to the obvious things when it comes to ourselves, after all,” Lanayru mutters, seemingly unaware of Time’s rising ire. He examines him with black, beady eyes. “You are an odd one, Hero of Time. There is a strangeness to your magic, if you will not find me rude for saying so.”

“It’s not so different from yours,” Time replies. It is coloured, he knows, by the Triforce, by his time in Sacred Realm, by a childhood spent with fairies in an enchanted forest. Twisted further by the absurd loop he escaped, and no doubt the mask he used to do so has played a role as well.

“Indeed. You must be far older than you look. I hadn’t thought your kind lived so long.” Lanayru thumps his tail, and the puffs of cloud around it crackle with sparks of lightning. “And yet, it changes not what you seek. Would that I could help you, Hero of Time, but if there is a way to do what you wish, I have no knowledge of it.”

The fragile hope withers. “Never mind, then,” he says shortly, and turns on his heel. It had been a longshot, he knew, but the disappointment is _bitter_.

“Wait, Hero of Time,” Lanayru chides him. Time stills as robots roll forward to bar his way. The dragon heaves a long, tired sigh. “I cannot help you, but also, knowing your situation, I cannot simply let you roam free. I am a loyal servant to the Goddess, and if you are not here at her bidding, the damage you could wreak to the future is not something I can simply overlook.”

Time takes a deep breath. “I don’t know why I am surprised. The servants of the Goddess are all too keen to help when I’m following her quests,” he remarks coldly, “And yet the first time I seek some small happiness for myself, suddenly I am denied.”

“You _are_ a servant of the Goddess, then,” Lanayru observes.

Pain lances through his chest at the thought– and behind it, a rising wave of resentment, sharpened by a hundred pointless cycles, by a ninth portal that forever led nowhere. “Once,” is all he can bring himself to say in response.

Lanayru’s face creases with sadness. “If you would swear yourself to her still-”

Time cuts his hand in the air with a snarl. “Never again,” he spits. “After what she did – when I did nothing more than _everything_ she wanted for so long!”

The dragon regards him at length. “…You feel quite strongly about this.”

“You have no idea,” Time hisses, barely suppressed fury bubbling beneath his skin.

Neither of them move for a long moment. Then Lanayru lets out a long, rumbling breath.

“I regret this, Hero of Time,” Lanayru says, and motions to the robots penning Time in. Their eyes begin to shine with power – a dozen ancient beamos, focused entirely upon him. “I truly do. I would have liked to talk more with you, but if you feel that way, you leave me no choice.”

The air fills with the whining rise of power as the robots charge, and Time’s temper snaps.

Magic lashes from him, pure and unfiltered and wild. A frenzy of bright white light, sharp and burning energy that crashes around him in a storm of destruction.

The robots are wiped out. Lanayru roars in pain, and lighting cracks towards him as the dragon retaliates in kind. But Time seizes upon Farore’s Wind, teleports away, and then does it again. And again. And again.

* * *

Time leaves a trail of destruction out of Lanayru’s desert. At some point, he runs out of enemies to fight, and is left only with the rustle of grass in the wind and the broken remains of Lanayru’s minions scattered around him.

His last hope of returning to where he belongs is gone.

He’s left with nothing. He’ll never get to hold Malon in his arms again, never get to see his child, never have the chance to find Navi again. Never get to see what comes _after_.

He has nothing more to do but to roam the outskirts of what might one day be Hyrule, lamenting a broken promise and wallowing in regrets.

So that’s what he does.

He expects to waste away, eventually, but as the years pass he soon discovers that the magic he used to break free of Hylia’s loop has indelibly changed him - more than just the boost in strength and magic. He doesn’t seem to age anymore, though it takes a decade for that to even register. His hair has turned white – not from the mask, but from the stress of the initial jump, he thinks – but none of the expected aches and pains of growing older manifest, despite the fact that he sleeps rough more often than not.

His magic itself has changed too – the event in Lanayru’s desert is not a unique one, though it remains the largest. He spends some years learning to control it, to shape it, and in the end he manages to recreate the Fierce Deity’s blade beam – a spell that is all his, not gifted by a great fairy or an incarnation of Hylia.

For a time, he fends off the minions of the Goddess, but when he does nothing else for years on end, that too drops off – Lanayru either losing interest or giving up. The years roll past with agonising slowness and terrifying speed. He sleeps for much of it. Plays the Song of Double Time occasionally, and watches the sun and moon wheel across the sky for weeks on end. Plays the Song of Storms for hours other times, uncaring of the rain lashing his body or the thunder drowning out the notes.

He loses himself, over time. For all that he is changed, the mortal mind is not made for immortality, Hero’s Spirit or not. He clings to the most precious memories, even as decades of loneliness weather away the details. Soon all that remains are thoughts of children he needs to protect, of sons stolen by Hylia, of a nightmarish cycle he struggled to escape, formless rage left to fester too long, resentment and decades of suffering and the knowledge that all of it is the Goddess’s fault.

The Demon Tribe make overtures of an alliance to him exactly once, and are decimated for the attempt. The Gorons will still trade with him, though always cautiously and with great deference, and the need is so rare and the opportunities so few that even they fall by the wayside eventually.

He ventures back into Hyrule proper only occasionally anyway – mostly for the fairies, who flock to him whenever he’s near their home. Over the period since Time first arrived in this era, they’ve gone from non-verbal creatures to enthused toddlers armed with just enough words to provide endless nonsensical commentary on whatever their interest of the moment is. And given the lack of hylians gracing the surface, and the Gorons’ preference for locales which are unfriendly habitats to most other forms of life, Time is their favourite dumping ground for any new collective discoveries they make.

Otherwise, all he does is fight and sleep and roam. His sword eventually weathers away to nothing, so he fashions a new one, a pair of blades twisted together to better direct his magic. The shape is distantly familiar, to the point where he’s sure he’s been inspired by something he can no longer quite remember, the echo of it reverberating in his soul, and the Song of Storms roars in his skull.

The stories about him start to shift, after that. The years wind past like a lazy river, and the rumours grow, whispers of truth twisting into exaggerated tales. Gorons mutter of him when dark clouds form in the sky. Fairies come out whenever it rains, searching for him. The Demon Tribe shuts their gates whenever thunder cracks in the distance.

Farore is the Goddess of the Wind, Din is the Goddess of Fire and Lightning, Nayru is the Goddess of the Rain, but to the denizens of ancient Hyrule, Time becomes the God of Storms.

Time scarcely notices, simply travelling the land, defeating whatever foes present themselves, paying little attention to anything else. Faron chastises him for his rudeness once, when he wanders into his domain bringing pouring rain and bolts of lightning, but the dragons steer clear of him otherwise – a careful truce after Lanayru’s failures to deal with him, an acknowledgement that it was not a fight they wanted to attempt, and wouldn’t so long as Time didn’t linger overlong in their territory and didn’t cause trouble. Time abides by it easily – his ire reserved far more for Hylia than her loyal minions. After all, he carries some distant, faded recollection of being such a foolish follower once himself.

He’s not a true god, though, and never has been. He’s just terribly old, terribly powerful. At some point, just terrible.

* * *

It’s Sky who finally banishes him from Hyrule for good.

Time has spent some decades roaming more distant lands before drifting inevitably back towards what will one day be the heart of Hyrule, where the land is rich with magic and fairies can be found around every corner. Where Hylia has finally left the clouds and graces the surface once more.

His return is heralded by roiling clouds and unceasing rain. Except for once, instead of seeking shelter or fleeing the frightening figure in their midst, someone makes their way determinedly to the centre of the storm.

He stands across from him now, seemingly struck dumb, gaping. “ _Old Man_?”

Time turns his one-eyed gaze upon him, he stops humming, and the storm clears around them, for a moment. A trio of fairies, dancing in the puddles by his feet, disappear into the long grasses, spooked.

“Is… it really you?” the boy – the _man_ – asks.

Time almost doesn’t recognise him. But there’s an echo of a memory, a cherished series of meetings that have worn a groove deep into his soul. So many details are lost, but he remembers the shapes – _clings_ to those memories with a ferocity worthy of a god.

“The Chosen Hero,” he murmurs, the words like sandpaper against his tongue. Sky. He’s older than he remembers – he’s evidently been away from these lands longer than planned, if he’s missed both the hero’s first descent and his absence for _that_ quest, the one which landed Time here.

“It _is_ you,” Sky decides. “It must be. That armour, the eye, the markings – even if the sword is different, and your hair…” He hesitates when Time doesn’t react, and barrels on, “I came here to investigate the rumours. Everyone warned me about it. A vengeful, fierce deity that roams the land in the centre of a violent storm, that will kill anyone who crosses him. But that can’t be… that’s not _you_ , is it?”

He doesn’t respond. The silence itself is damning.

Sky begins to look apprehensive. “Old Man? Say something.”

Time doesn’t. It’s been so long since anyone has conversed with him, beyond the occasional chatty fairy, none of whom seem to need his input anymore to hold conversations all on their own.

Time can’t remember the last time he held a proper conversation. His thoughts wander too much. He’s too _old_.

Sky bites his lip as the silence lengthens. “I became a good man, I like to think,” he eventually says. “Your words meant a lot to me, you know. Since returning, I’ve tried to live by them.” He shakes his head. “You were acting so strange, though, the days before that final battle. I didn’t think anything of it, but now, finding you here… What happened, after? Did something go wrong with the portals? How are you _here_? You’ve not even supposed to be born yet!”

Time frowns. Casts his gaze to the horizon, considering the twisted loop of his existence for the first time in years. The words ring true, and yet…

And yet.

“What _happened_ to you?” Sky asks, and the words are like shards of pottery, cracking under grief and regrets he doesn’t understand. For him? Since when has _anyone_ ever mourned _him_? “Twilight never wanted this for you. I thought you promised him that you’d live a good life. Not – not this!”

Then the spark of light magic catches his attention – the thing that drew him from distant lands back here in the first place.

_Hylia_.

He draws his Helix blade, focused on her presence. She’s not _here_ , but she’s close. Fury and resentment bubble beneath his skin. For the first time in centuries, she is within reach. “The Goddess,” he breathes, his breath a cloud of frost and lightning.

Except he’s forgotten where he is, for just a moment, and the Chosen Hero has drawn his sword in response.

“If it really is you, you deserved a kinder fate than this,” Sky says, and there are tears in his eyes but his voice is entirely steel. “But I cannot let you hurt her.”

It’s a fight that _should_ be legendary, that should tear the earth and be sung of for centuries to come. But because it’s Sky, and because somewhere in the madness and rage, he recognises a child, a boy that he’d once considered one of _his_ – Time does not raise his blade in defence when the Master Sword strikes at his chest.

The sword shines bright, trying to burn away the years of accumulated fury and resentment and suffering and _darkness,_ the strands of time and probability and fate twisted and barbed around his soul a thousandfold- until it hits something, deep within. The tiny fragment of his original spirit, the precious first few decades of his life, and the sword _recoils_.

Something snaps, and shatters. His soul, cleaved perfectly in two.

He feels it leave. His bitterness, his sorrow, his regrets, his patience… _his love_. It splits from him, rotted to the bone, half of his magic, half of his memories suddenly just _gone_.

It takes his one good eye with him. The last thing he sees with it is the Chosen Hero’s expression, contorted in horror.

He reaches for it, blindly, desperately – because for all else, he’s still mortal enough to instinctively desire to be _whole_. But then he’s only left with darkness.

Time is halved, and the half that is left is nothing but fury and violence and madness.

He can’t see it, but he can _feel_ it. The moment the Shade turns his back on him, and slips away into the Ghostly Ether, out of reach, into a place he cannot follow. He howls in anguish.

Half of him will have an ending. But the other half is left, here, still tangled helplessly in the threads of time and fate.

“Fi,” Sky whispers in a strangled voice. “What- this isn’t- _what have we done?”_

* * *

He flees, and winds up in another time, another place – a realm Hylia has turned her back upon. A terminus for rejected souls, for the fragments of what-ifs and could-have-beens, where delusions and dreams are given form, twisted into a mad tapestry of history, woven by the unfortunate lost souls who wander into its domain.

And there in the chaos of the lost realm, Time scrabbles in the sands of dreams, feebly trying to put himself back together. At some point, he finds himself in a cave, where he passes another hundred years, killing anything that draws near. He scratches blindly at the walls, humming the song of storms over and over again, his fingers tracing the notes in the rock as a tempest rages outside. His rage lashes the skies for months at a time. Pointless and destructive and blind.

He eventually heals, at least physically. Recovers. Learns to see the world without sight, learns how to fight blind. It gives him a purpose, something to persevere for – the hope that one day he will leave this realm and confront Hylia. He’s lost so much – only whispers remain, enough to let him know that he once loved, that he once mourned. There are gaping voids in his memory, holes he doesn’t know how to fill, so he fills them with violence.

He’s not a true god, though – and now, not even half of one - and eventually, he gets careless.

It’s a shadow who deals the final blow – another lost fragment, a mirror soul tossed into this wretched realm of the in-between, who stands in the path of the storm and doesn’t move. Time can’t _see_ him, not in a traditional manner, but he feels distantly familiar, in a way he can’t quite grasp but knows he _should_. Something about the shape of his magic, the timbre of his voice. And he’s short, which is an irrelevant point that somehow feels like a defining trait.

The shadow lets out a whistle as he draws close. “And to think I was only playing at being a hero,” he says, “but here I am facing down a demonic god without anyone even telling me to.”

His fingers tighten around the grip of his Helix sword, face cast in a scowl. He’ll cut down this threat as judiciously as any other that has presented himself.

“I know a thing or two about split souls, but you, you’re a mess. I’m not sure how you’re even alive, you must have been terrifying before it happened.” He studies him thoughtfully. “This isn’t the work of the Four Sword, though, this is… savage. You’re all ragged edges. You make _me_ look put together.” He sighs. “This… kind of makes me almost not want to do it, honestly. Out of solidarity, or something. I guess I should ask – what’s your goal, then?”

Goal?

“The Goddess,” he murmurs. She couldn’t be allowed to continue to do this. She stole… something, from him. His son?

The shadow shakes his head. “I was worried about that. The rumours are true after all then, and I can’t just let it pass. Not anymore.” His tone turns wistful. “She was the first one to ever let me think I could be a hero, you know. She was the first one to ever show me kindness.”

“She’s the reason you’re _here_ ,” Time says, with certainty. She was always the reason anybody wound up here.

“It was worth it,” the shadow shoots back. “And I’d do it again in a heartbeat.”

Like all others that will stand in his way then, this opponent will fall.

It’s a fight the shadow should have lost in an instant – but much like Sky, it’s a fight that never gets to happen. As he steps forward, helix sword brandished, the ground lights up around him, the magic blinding.

“I know I can’t beat _you_ , not in a fair fight,” the shadow admits. “I know a few things about Soul Magic, though, and history.” It’s a trap, lavishly laid, a seal of all-too-familiar magic that snaps shut the moment he steps onto it. He snarls, and moves to break it, but the strands of fate tighten around him, choking him with cruel realisation. He knows this magic, he’s _used_ it, with a song instead of a seal but that means…

The paradox. He never escaped it. _He never escaped_ -

“You poor thing,” the shadow says, voice fading away. “You truly have met with a terrible fate, haven’t you?”

The Mask of the Fierce Deity clatters to the ground.


End file.
